Conclusion
Conclusion
Modernity and Its Traditions
This concluding chapter analyzes the dilemma in which modern Iran finds itself today, caught between the variety of imagined narratives of modernity that are the by-products of a troubled historical experience of modernity, and the problematic “universal” narrative of modernity inherited from the period of European hegemony. It asks how a narrative of modernity may be generated which is critical of both the internal shortcomings of national tradition and the problematic nature of the universal narrative of modernity. Starting with a discussion of the break that is often claimed to exist between modernity and post-modernity, the chapter argues for a more broadly nuanced and pluralistic understanding of modernity. This may be said to include the principal issues raised by postmodernism as part of its own ongoing critique, which require varied answers within different social and political contexts.
Keywords: imagined narratives, universal narrative, modernity, European hegemony, postmodernism
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